The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 23, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

Arthur C. Clarke is considered to be the greatest science fiction writer of all time. He is an international treasure in many other ways: An article written by him in 1945 led to the invention of satellite technology. Books by Mr. Clarke--both fiction and

"By the time the exposition-stuffed narrative gets around to reporting on the main event, few readers will care."

Hostile aliens intend to blow up the Sun and wipe humanity out in this sequel to Time's Eye, (2004), where one reappearing character, unlike anybody else, retains memories from the previous adventure.
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A massive compendium brings together (most probably) every story—104 in total, at least 3 previously uncollected—ever written by grandmaster Clarke (3001: The Final Odyssey, 1997, etc).
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"Often chaotic but fizzing with ideas: one of those rare books you wish had been longer, with a more thorough exploration of the many fascinating issues it raises. ($250,000 ad/promo)"

This first collaborative effort from Clarke, the venerable author of 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997), etc., and the up-and-coming Baxter (Manifold: Time, Jan. 2000, etc.), exploits an old SF idea: a device that allows anyone to spy on anyone else, anywhere…and anytime.
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"And there are personal tragedies as well: Nelson, after the shock of a generator, is laterally inverted, Connolly is haunted by a parasitic presence which drives him to his death; etc., etc. An unsettling- but diverting form of divination."

A new collection of short stories range forward in time and view a changing universe; old worlds die- and new civilizations replace them.
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"Long-windedly un-Clarke-like but engagingly peopled, and, while improbable, never dull."

Collaboration between the veteran Clarke (The Hammer of God, 1993, etc.) and the late McQuay (Puppetmaster, 1991, etc.) about near-future earthquakes, politics, and environmental disaster.
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"Little here is new—Clarke must be hoarse from repeating this message—but such a charming, pleasurable retelling of the societal unification myth is certainly worthwhile."

In a cheerful, if hardly startling, review, Clarke traces humankind's transformation from a mosaic of isolated states into a true global community—through modern communications-technology that began with the laying of the first submarine cables and continues to future visions of "talkmen" (Walkman-like telephones).
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"Crude attempts to jumpstart the reader's sense of wonder with repeated insistence that the characters are awed, amazed, and overwhelmed by the rather routine vistas they encounter serve only to underline the lack of the genuine goods here."

Picking up where Rama II (1989) left off, this latest effort from Clarke and Lee is as disappointing as their others.
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"So, Clarke's near-best has brought out the usually brilliant Benford's absolute worst—and the upshot is a project ill-conceived, ill-wrought, and irrelevant."

In Benford's case, beyond anything remotely in harmony with Clarke's far-future saga Against the Fall of Night (later reworked as the better 1956 novel, The City and the Stars).
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"Dated in some respects, startlingly predictive in others: Clarke is never at the cutting edge here, but he is good company, and the rarities will make it a useful addition to collections and libraries."

"Charming—Clarke loves his subject, and it shows—and effortlessly informative while maintaining a perfect balance between affection and skepticism."

Clarke rambles nostalgically through the odd early days of the influential pulp science-fiction magazine, Astounding Tales of Super-Science, in a warmly appreciative yet far from uncritical tribute to sf's beginnings-cum-personal memoir.
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"Alexson's briefing takes him from London to the base in the desert of Australia where the Prometheus is to be launched; the extensive preparations, the screening of the crew, the ultimate objectives of the mission-all this forms a precise prospectus which is more science than fiction."

An astronautical documentary of the first rocket to the moon as it is recorded by Dirk Alexson, an historian assigned to the project.
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Only superlatives will do for Arthur Clarke's dazzlingly polished, wonderfully original exploration of a gigantic alien space ship that passes briefly through the solar system on its way to an unimaginable destination.
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"Perhaps the 2001th version of previously charted journeys but steady, reliable, and efficient."

There are one or two chips off the old monolith (a spectacular encounter with the "Outer Giants" of Space and some strange transformations; an amusing theological/galactic speculation) but most of these short stories involve familiar machinery, stranded heroes, and electronic or deep-marine monsters.
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An extensively revised edition of Clarke's Going Into Space (1954), with new chapters on space stations and "harvests of space" (benefits incurred from space exploration to date).
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This is not major nor new Arthur Clarke but it's Arthur Clarke all the same and that's enough to give devotees galactic goosebumps in that space between their 2001 ears — yes, Son of Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Stanley Kubrick (and the sequel) is included here.
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"Publication is aimed to coincide with the release of the Clarke-Kubrick production, 2001: A Space Odyssey."

The Promise of Space is written for the same intelligent laymen the author had in mind in The Exploration of Space (1951) "all those who are interested in the 'why' and 'how' of astronautics, yet do not wish to go into too many scientific details."
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Eleven different sciences are represented in these short stories: Robert Heinlein uses math to build a remarkably inconvenient Crooked House; Murray Leinster startles with a cybernetic superweapon in The Wabbler; Theodore Thomas ponders the wondrous ways of The Weather Man when he can do more than just talk about it...an out-standing effort.
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Subtitled "An Omnibus," this collection contains the author's early classic Prelude to Space and his later novel The Sands of Mars along with sixteen short stories on both the "light" and the "dark" side of space.
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The account of a "rather small underwater expedition" (the author and his companion, Mike Wilson) in 1954-55 to the Great Barrier Reef of the eastern seaboard of Australia is a bit of all right, even in heavy competition.
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"The electronic saga sometimes pops with a bit of poetry and sentiment, but for the most part it is told in the tone of hardy idealism rarely encountered in today's fiction. We'll to the stars no more"

The story is something of a hymn to a home-based British radar unit during WW II and concerns the development of a radar talk-down system for landing planes.
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"An area with too much heat; the first baby born in space; kittens in a spaceship locker; a dead astronaut; an abacus saving men when machines fail; an ape excelling in painting; death by astronomy; crime on Mars; a killing by sunlight — these vary theme and telling satisfactorily."

Three handsful (well, 15) collected from Clarke's magazine appearances wander from a dog's warning to his master to misty conception of worlds to vanish, and offer a kaleidoscope of matters beyond human ken.
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"Further, he systematizes nothing; there are no socio-cultural parallels drawn; man, as we've known him, vanishes completely in this gala inquiry into the limits of the possible."

Arthur Clarke is the high lama of science fiction and non-fiction; as an astrophysicist he wrote The Exploration of Space; with a Wellsian imagination he concocted Childhood's End.
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"MPSLUGMISTER Clarke's amazing yet fully credible account will be brilliantly illustrated with the photographs he brought home and in its modest, low pitched style it is sure to capture new adherents to the undersea way of life, be they only simple in waters."

A prolific writer and an esteemed underwater explorer has recorded one of his most fascinating adventures in the largest unexplored region of our planet, the Indian Ocean.
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"With skin diving reaching ever greater dimensions of popularity, this illustrated book is both informative and inviting and should appeal to any reader who in any form enjoys water sports."

As the first five fathoms—approximately thirty feet—are the most vivid and the most accessible to man, this excellent text on diving restricts itself to that area of underwater life.
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"This has broader appeal than his other books which are already standbys in bookstores and libraries."

Twenty articles concerning the impact of the coming space age on mankind written by the former chairman of the British Interplanetary Society and one of the most imaginative, scientifically oriented writers of space literature today.
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A most amiable continuation of this author's previous The Coast Of Coral (1956) here brings him back from that expedition and starts him off on one that takes him to Ceylon and the waters on its north, east, south and west — and over the land itself.
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In book form, a select selection of shorter pieces includes The Star (voted the best science fiction piece of 1956) in which the ruins of a dead continent and civilization are revealed- only to frame another unanswerable question; the title constellation of six pieces dealing with space stations; the Venture to the Moon undertaken by an American, a British and a Russian space ship- and the subsequent sequels to the landing there, etc. These and others deal largely with extraterrestial excursions which assume a greater reality now, and offer a legible, believable form of skywriting.
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"Turning skyward he analyzes the atmosphere, the planets and their positions in the universe, the work now going on for flight to them, and what may happen when man gets to the moon."

Another round-up of the outlook, probabilities and possibilities of present and future space travel- by the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society and a science fiction writer-makes its bid as an authoritative book in a popular, growing market ( Charles Coombs' book reported below).
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